Home Improvement Heck: Day 15

There is peace in the valley. The siding construction crew is heading off to parts unknown and uncared about. My final inspection has revealed that my putting up with pounding and vibrating walls for three weeks was not for naught. The work is professional and beautiful.

This morning, when I took the garbage out I told the guys that I’d miss their pretty faces around here. One of them retorted, “We’ll miss your pretty face in the morning, too.” So, the feeling is clearly mutual. So is the sarcasm. But let that not cloud the fact that they did great work.

I hate change orders. There were none. Never know what you’ll find when you tear off 35 year-old siding. I guess it did its job well, but it wouldn’t have lasted much longer. In any case, I dodged a bullet here. No change orders is a good thing.

Coon on Da Roof

Coon on da roof.

The window guy arrived early to replace the pane that the siding guys broke. When I met him out front, he pointed out something that he said was a first for him: a raccoon sleeping on my roof (see picture). That’s an all-time first for me, too. I have heard the pitter-patter of feet on the roof from time to time, but didn’t think about the possibility of raccoons. I’ve got to wonder why this one decided that a shady part of my roof was a hospitable spot for a daytime snooze, given all the racket going on around here.

Other than raccoon crap on the roof, what are the perils of having a pet raccoon that acts like a cat?

Roof Rats

This reminded me of Rhoda, the condo commando in a condo where I lived many years ago. Rhoda was an old yenta who needed to stick her nose into everyone else’s business. (I guess that’s redundant.) She was complaining about rodents at an association meeting where I was privileged to serve as treasurer.

“We have roof rats and we have ground rats, and we have mice, which are the babies of both,” droned Rhoda from the audience.

“Excuse me, Rhoda, but mice are not baby rats,” I stated.

“Yeah, well, WHAT ARE THEY THEN!?!?!?” she belligerently countered, making a complete fool of herself.

I added an anticlimactic retort and moved on to another subject.

But I Digress…

When the workers first arrived, the foremen apprised me that there was a family of opossumusses (better known as ‘possums) living behind my back porch. Yesterday he pointed out to me where he had originally found them, but they apparently had the sense to find a better location to get some daytime sleep. They had packed their bags and moved on. Raccoons, in general, are smarter than ‘possums — hell, most rocks are smarter than ‘possums — but in this case, either the ‘coon is deaf, found some earplugs, or is a pet of the construction guys.

The only other wildlife they encountered was a scorpion hiding in some of the wood trim. I hope they didn’t find out about him the hard way.

Back to Semi-Normalcy

Ahhh, finally some peace and quiet around here. Lord, what a tri-week it has been, especially the part where I get up at 6:30 every morning. (I know you working people do that every day, but this retired old fart is used to a little more civility in the morning.)

The contract has a couple more phases now that the siding is done. First, the gutters and downspouts will be replaced. That is to take place tomorrow. Then, the entire house will get two coats of paint (except for the brick part), the job to commence late next week.

Replacing the 20 year-old roof will be the next project, but I’ll contract that sometime in the future. I’ll have to recover from this job first and we’re approaching the rainy, hot summer here, which is not a great time to do roofing, if one has the option to avoid it.

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The Nittany Turkey is a retired techno-geek who thinks he knows something about Penn State football and everything else in the world. If there's a topic, we have an opinion on it, and you know what "they" say about opinions! Most of what is posted here involves a heavy dose of hip-shooting conjecture, but unlike some other blogs, we don't represent it as fact. Read More…